Calvin does High School
by slytherinsal
Summary: Calvin is 14 and ready to start high school; and is old enough to declare Hobbes as a mascot. It seems however that Calvin is not the only person who can see Hobbes. I've been talked into extending this. I do not own Calvin but I wish I owned Hobbes
1. Chapter 1

_A/N I don't know if this is going to go anywhere or if it's going to be a oneshot but I had an urge to write it to step away from some angst in my other fics; so here we go and it'll be what it is. Rather like Calvin himself. By the way, apologies if I get any details of American Schools wrong. I'll also try to remember to spell in yankee. No promises on that front. Calvin wouldn't care anyway so long as his art is appreciated. _

**1. First day in High School**

Going to big school was always going to be a bit nervous; but now Calvin was fourteen having a mascot was just fine so Hobbes could go with him.

And most of the kids would be the same so at least he would know them….

Oh wait, that was not necessarily an advantage. Moe would be there too. But at least Moe was scared of Hobbes.

Or was he? When they had been six Calvin had assumed that Moe could see Hobbes threaten him; but he had learned – painfully – in the meantime that most people, even Susie Derkins, could not see Hobbes change from a stuffed tiger into a real tiger. And he was finding it harder himself; growing up was not good.

"I love you Hobbes" he said before they went downstairs "I don't want to grow up if it means losing you."

"I love me too" said Hobbes. "I guess the secret is not to grow up where your thoughts and beliefs are. So long as you keep believing I'm special it'll be okay. It was pretty bad when you were nine and thought you were too old for a stuffed toy."

"I must have been nuts" said Calvin "I stopped making up stories too….. It was terrifying when Mom had to have her appendix out but y'know in a way it was the best thing that could have happened; because you were the only person I could talk to and you never laughed at me for crying."

"Even your dad talked to me then" said Hobbes "Well if you can call it talking to me when all he did was address a monologue to me about the statistics of death on the operating table."

"That's dad though" shrugged Calvin. "Uh oh, mom's calling; we have to go."

oOoOo

"You brought Hobbes" said Susie as Calvin sat down on the bus.

"Why not? He's my mascot" said Calvin. "The superstitious awe of mankind leads to anthropomorphising objects in a probably vain expectation that some form of animate spirit of object, as typified by the animist religion of Shinto, will lend some kind of divine aid. Live with it."

"If you wrote essays with as much research in as the rubbish you spout about irrelevancies you might get higher marks" said Susie.

"Getting high grades is an illusion" said Calvin loftily "Striving for high position is a sign of an empty mind."

"No you pea brain it's the sign of someone who likes the idea of being well off when they leave school" said Susie "And I'm not impressed with all that Zen rubbish. Even Hobbes looks disapproving" she tried to joke; one had to live with the zany little nutter after all.

"It's you he's scowling at" said Calvin.

"No I'm not" murmured Hobbes "I saw a dog outside; I wasn't actually listening. You and Susie have had variations on this conversation for the last eight years and it's boring. Please don't marry her; I'd have to live with it all day then."

Calvin now knew better than to answer Hobbes when someone who could not see his other form was present. He turned pointedly away from both of them for the rest of the journey.

oOoOo

The new girl was gorgeous. She had frizzy ginger hair and green eyes and a three cornered smile that made Calvin's spine feel crinkly.

"YOW! Gorgeous babe!" said Hobbes.

"Yeah" said Calvin "Oh boy! Moe's seen her; I suppose we'd better go and help. I'm going to get ploughed into the ground again."

Moe was busy explaining in his limited vocabulary that he was the top dog here and she better give him a kiss.

"Or what, dogbreath?" said the girl.

"Or I take one and as much more as I feel like" said Moe.

"Leave her alone Moe!" said Calvin.

"Oh hi Twinky; what, you gonna set your toy tiger on me? I ain't fallin' for the booby-trapped toy trick again" said Moe.

"I – I'll fight you!" Calvin went white.

"Hey, Twinky, I'll deal with you later" said Moe "I got a hot date with this chick first."

"In your DREAMS you underbred Neanderthal" said the girl.

"Hey she has a nice line of insults" said Hobbes.

"Thank you" said the girl.

Calvin started. Had she just answered HOBBES?

Moe went to pull her to him; he had kissed most of the pretty girls in the top year of middle school and though he had received a caution from the headmaster it had not seemed to make any difference. Calvin privately doubted that Moe had any idea that his concept of getting his own way was called extortion, grievous bodily harm or – as it would doubtless end up – rape in the grown up world and would be surprised and grieved when he ended up in prison. He gritted his teeth and went forward to try to pull Moe away.

He did not need to.

There was a flurry of limbs and ginger hair and Moe went down.

Calvin stood with his mouth open.

"RrrAARRR, cool babe!" said Hobbes.

"Stop purring you" said the girl; but she was smiling. "The class bully I take it. My name's Jessica; and my dad's a Gunny."

"Crumbs!" said Calvin "will you teach ME that? It's just so cool…. I'm Calvin by the way and the mouthy one is Hobbes. He's my uh, mascot."

"Hi Calvin; hi Hobbes" said Jessica linking an arm into each. "I suppose you already have friends with a cool friend like Hobbes? Or can't the dorks see him?"

"They can't see him; and they think I'm a dork who doesn't live in the real world" blurted Calvin.

"Oh boy! Their loss and my gain!" said Jessica "If we can be friends?"

"I – yeah. Why not?" said Calvin trying for nonchalant.

Jessica grinned at him.

"Well as my mom is busy shopping fit to drop to sort out the new house now we've been posted here and dad's on duty, I can come by yours after school and start those lessons; and maybe Hobbes might let me do his tummy in private."

"For a lady" said Hobbes "Anything."

"You never let me" said Calvin resentfully.

"Well I never noticed YOU were a lady" said Hobbes "I can't help being a babe magnet!"

"Gentlemen! Don't quarrel over me!" laughed Jessica. "Oh, I was DREADING being in a new school; but I think it's going to be rather good fun!"

It may be said that Susie and the others watched in bafflement that the pretty new girl had both flattened Moe and then walked off with one arm round Calvin's arm and his mascot tiger tucked under her other arm.

"She doesn't know him like we do" said Susie ominously.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N thanks Zim999 and L for persuading me to do some more and Thanks Zim for enthusiastic encouragement!_

**2 Tiger Stance**

"Okay, the principles of kung fu is that you take on the characteristics of animals to be able to react to any situation" said Jessica "This is the position you start off in; it's called Goat Stance."

"What because you feel a stupid goat in it?" said Calvin

"No silly; because mountain goats are really agile and can move in any direction to counter a threat" said Jessica.

"She's right there" said Hobbes "And they move about such a lot they're not worth eating when you catch them; too stringy."

"Okay" said Calvin "Is there a tiger stance?"

"Sure there is; it's this one" Jessica demonstrated an aggressive looking stance"But you ought to get some basics first."

"He's too lazy to learn basics; it's why he always flunks his assignments" said Hobbes.

"HEY!" said Calvin.

"Well flunking learning the basics at kung fu is called getting beaten up by the Neanderthal Moe" said Jessica. "Even Bruce Lee had to start somewhere; and what my DAD taught me was the fighting style Lee made for himself for real fighting; and it hurts. But you get to be hard enough to defend yourself. Dad says a pretty girl on a military base didn't ought to be helpless. He means some of the marines can get a little fresh."

"Well you can't blame them" said Hobbes.

"Oy" said Jessica.

"Okay I really will learn the basics" said Calvin.

Jessica was cute enough to hurt for; and to do the boring stuff for; and he did not like Hobbes laughing at him. Or chatting her up.

Calvin's mum came in while Jessica was correcting his stance and showing him how to block and move through for a knock down.

"Hello children, dancing are you?" she said "I don't mind if you want to have the music on."

"Actually Mrs Bullart…" began Jessica.

"It's okay mom, Jessica is teaching me some moves" said Calvin hastily.

"Oh that is nice" said his mother "Were you staying to tea, dear?"

"I shouldn't" said Calvin "Mom's been cooking."

"That isn't very nice dear" said Mom.

"If there's enough to go round I don't have to be home" said Jessica "Mom sent me a text; she's in a traffic jam. I said I was out."

"I'll drive you home later honey" said Mom.

She drifted out again.

"I warn you, you're taking your life in your hands" said Calvin "She does terrible things to vegetables and calls it food; when I was a kid I was convinced she was trying to poison me deliberately."

Jessica laughed.

"Can't be as bad as what they have in the military" she said "Dad says they're called MRE which is supposed to stand for 'meals, ready to eat' but all the marines call them 'Meals rejected by Ethiopians'!"

"Grim" said Calvin.

By tea time he was getting to grips with some simple moves and his arms hurt.

Not as much as Moe's did though, he thought, for having tangled with Jessica. And even Stupendous Man had to start somewhere….

And Jessica had not seemed to mind Mom's cooking too much. At least she was polite about it and ate it all.

And actually he was looking forward to school tomorrow instead of dreading it as he had always done before.

He even showed Jessica his collection of photographs of the snowmen he created that freaked Dad out so.

"These are just so COOL, Calvin!" she said with a squeal "Oh I LOVE that big one chasing the tiny ones – sort of Snowzilla!"

"At LAST someone who appreciates my genius!" said Calvin. He was half joking; middle school had been a painful time of being called a freak by everyone including the child psychologist who had not appreciated having a plasticine effigy made of her and fed slowly into a desk pencil sharpener.

"I think it shows an awful lot of thought" said Jessica "You ought to sculpt in clay."

"I tried; Hobbes is really good but it won't do what I want it to" said Calvin gloomily.

"He's too impatient" said Hobbes "But it takes a tiger to be truly creative. I can make massive squelchy noises with my armpits too" and he demonstrated .

"Bet you can't make cork-popping sounds with your finger in your mouth though" said Jessica and showed them how. "My Mom was the only girl in her school who could do it though lots of boys could; it's to do with not letting the lips go flaccid as you pull your finger out."

"COOL" said Calvin "Your Mom and Dad sound pretty laid back!"

"They are" said Jessica. "But there are limits and if I pass them I get well and truly bounced for it; like breaking the code on the TV to watch blue movies on satellite channels. I got grounded for a week for that."

"How old were you?" asked Calvin.

"Nine" said Jessica "And no I didn't want to WATCH blue movies; I wanted the chance to be ABLE to watch blue movies. You know."

Calvin nodded. That made perfect sense to him.

And after Jessica had gone he actually did his homework without making too much of a fuss about it – he did not want Jessica to think he was stupid – and went to bed with such alacrity that his mom took his temperature.

The sooner he went to sleep the sooner tomorrow would come; and somehow he had a feeling that days with Jessica would be almost as good as the holidays!

_A/N have I ever wanted to put the effigy of a child psychologist through a pencil sharpener? well I'll leave you guessing there. I can make the cork popping sound however and the secret is practise and lip control. _


	3. Chapter 3

**3 Animal Farm**

"I can't believe the new girl actually went home with you" said Susie on the bus in the morning "How long was it before she was begging to be taken home?"

"She didn't" said Calvin "She's cool. Even if she does think mom's cooking isn't too bad. She says I should be glad I don't have a mom like Clarissa in 'Clarissa explains it all' who makes the kids eat tofu with everything. Of course Tofu is really an alien life form and when you eat it, it lays alien eggs inside you ready to burst out when they're good and ready."

"You are so GROSS Calvin!" said Susie.

"Thanks; but I guess I have a few imperfections too" said Calvin.

"Yeah, no stripes" said Hobbes.

Calvin ignored that comment. He sighed. Jessica would have joined in a conversation with Hobbes. Pity SHE didn't live next door.

oOoOo

"I wish you could drop me off at school in a military vehicle, dad" said Jessica.

Her father looked up and down the street.

"Don't think we could fit the USS Iwo Jima up the street" he said. "Besides, I don't care how hard it rained in the night, it has too deep a draught."

"DAD!" giggled Jessica.

"Have a good day, honey; and bring that kid you were telling me about home some day" said her father kissing her as he dropped her off outside the school.

Jessica got out still giggling and ran into school.

The bus had just arrived and she waved to Calvin.

Susie sighed.

"She'll be a loser then" she remarked to nobody in particular.

"She did okay yesterday" said Candace, another girl in the class.

"Yes, but then on the first day who actually DOES anything?" said Susie "You wait; when she hands in the assignments we were given to grade us, chances are she's down in the F's with Weirdo and the Caveman."

"Well she can at least beat up the Caveman" said Candace, who had been forced to kiss Moe the previous year and had been to therapy for it.

"Only proves she's a cavewoman" said Susie.

oOoOo

Assignments having been handed in the class went to their first lesson, which was literature. The teacher was an enthusiastic looking young man with long hair.

"Right!" he said " My name is Mr Fingal; This term's assignment is to read and analyse 'Animal Farm' by George Orwell. Anyone read it already?"

Jessica's and Susie's hands went up.

"What read books about soppy animals at our age?" said a boy called Oliver scornfully.

"What's soppy about animals?" said Calvin who had privately thought the same thing but he did not like Oliver and he did like Jessica.

And Susie could be okay sometimes; and if Susie had read it, the book was bound to be highbrow.

"Thank you class that will do for uninformed comment; though one of you is at least prepared to be open minded" said Mr Fingal who was apparently not as likely to take mucking about as he looked. "Will one of you girls tell us what the book is about?"

Jessica rose.

"It's an allegorical examination of Communism and its internal self inconsistencies using a surreal satire through the experiences of a farm of anthropomorphised animals" she said.

"Excellent!" said Mr Fingal, almost drooling.

Calvin gazed in open mouthed adoration. Jessica knew as many long words as he did; and she didn't get into trouble for using them.

He lost his heart to Jessica, determined to actually read the book and gave grudging admiration to Mr Fingal in one go. The man had nodded to him in acknowledgement.

Susie stood up.

"It teaches us that well-intentioned beginnings can be usurped by the ambitions of the unscrupulous" she said.

"Excellent again!" said Mr Fingal "I hope you two girls will be prepared to help out with analysis as we study the book together. Today I am going to read to you the first chapter; and then hand out your class copies and a set of questions to answer on your understanding of it. From the next lesson I shall be looking for volunteers to read and we shall hold discussion. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can without lolling too much."

Calvin was prepared to take an interest – unusual for him – and listened avidly. It started off sounding like a children's story and Oliver sighed loudly. But then the meeting addressed by Old Major was not the stuff of children's tales.

"Quite stirring" remarked Hobbes.

Calvin nodded, listening to the reading. And Mr Fingal was brave enough to sing the song 'Beasts of England'; some of the girls giggled and a few boys sniggered; but Calvin liked his instant gratification and would have had no idea what the songs 'Clementine' and 'La Cucaracha' would have sounded like that the tune was described as being somewhere in between.

"Any questions?" asked Mr Fingal when he had finished. Calvin put his hand up. "Yes lad – what's your name?"

"Calvin sir" said Calvin "Are they really that cruel in England?"

Mr Fingal nodded in pleasure more than agreement.

"A good question. Farming techniques have changed here and in England since this book was written; certainly I think it unlikely that any working horse or dog would be killed, humanely or otherwise for reaching the end of their useful life. There are societies that care for elderly horses; most dogs become family pets in their twilight years. But one of the questions you will be pondering on in your homework assignment is how much of the cruelty mentioned is fact and how much is in the perceptions of the animals. Ah, the bell; pick up a work sheet and a copy of the book on the way out!"

"It's a cool book and quite frightening about how quickly justice can be undermined" said Jessica to Susie and Calvin as they left the class "He may not look much but I suspect that he's pretty knowledgeable."

"I can't believe Calvin was actually listening!" said Susie.

"I thought it was cool" said Calvin.

"I thought it was soppy" said Oliver.

"Goodness! You can THINK?" said Jessica "You astound me!"

Oliver flushed.

"Well I'm not going to bother over a girly book. Are you a girly then, Calvin?" he taunted.

"No; I'm just so far your intellectual superior that I don't just look down on your intelligence I have to mine for it" said Calvin.

Oliver, being unable to think of an answer for this, shouted

"Calvin is a girl!" and ran off.

"Oh let the little creep flunk" said Jessica scornfully "He didn't even listen; or he might have realised that it's a bit more than a story about animals."

"There weren't any tigers in it" said Hobbes "It isn't a cool story without tigers. I'd have eaten the rats not voted them comrades. I'd have eaten the farmer too."

"I'm sorry there were no tigers in it Hobbes" said Jessica.

"Oh don't you start talking to the freak's tiger too" said Susie and walked off in disgust to be admired by her group of girlfriends who were impressed that she had already read a set book.


	4. Chapter 4

**4. WHAT does she see in CALVIN?**

When it transpired that Jessica, if not top of the class in all things was generally speaking a fairly steady A minus student, Susie was wishing that she had been more forthcoming to someone who was apparently up there in her own league; and was wondering even more what Jessica saw in Calvin.

Jessica was also very good at games.

This was because, she said, she was used to competing with the marines who let her join in some of their team games; though she did get sent to the Headmaster for tackling and flooring Oliver because she had never played flag football and was used to nutting marines in the midriff; and if she was placed to act as tight end she was going to, she said, PLAY tight end.

The Head, perceiving her incomprehension over why she was in his study sighed; and explained gently.

That she beat up Moe again for calling her ginger did not damage Jessica's popularity.

The whole of her class, seeing him end up flat on his face, hastily learned the word 'auburn' that she firmly explained to the recumbent Moe was what her hair was called.

And Susie and her clique had no idea what Jessica could see in Calvin any more than the popular clique could!

Susie it may be said was not one of the popular ones; she was too interested in working hard and getting good grades to be one of the people whose parties were 'must attend' events. Susie hung out with Candace and Kaylee who were also quite serious about work; but they were best friends and Susie was permitted to hang with them.

The centre of most of the class attention was on Shannon Kennedy, who liked to encourage the idea that she was related to THE Kennedys which might be true if one went back far enough but was certainly not of recent enough occurrence for any Kennedy related to the president to recognise her. Shannon had black curls and flashing blue Irish eyes ringed by sooty lashes and held court passing out her smiles like favours to those of her classmates who danced sufficiently assiduously to her erratic piping. Her ladies in waiting of longest standing were Tamara, Jade and Amber and the boys who wooed her with most hope of success were Todd, Cody and Ryan. Oliver was of use to her and she laughed at Moe, knowing that her admirers would let the class bully beat them up rather than let him come near her. And Shannon very much resented the fact that not only could Jessica handle Moe on her own, but that the new girl did not acknowledge the natural leadership of the class princess.

"You can be my friend if you like" said Shannon casually to Jessica "But only if you lose the weirdo"

Jessica raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me? I would want to be friends with you why? You're just so boring; it hasn't taken me long to realise that the only thing between your ears is air, clothes and boys and most of it's air. I bet you don't even know what existentialism is let alone know how to spell it."

"There's no such word! You're making it up!" sad Shannon angrily.

"Told you she was a moron studying to become an imbecile" said Calvin.

"You were quite right" said Jessica, regarding Shannon as though she were some kind of odd specimen in a jar.

"You'll be sorry!" said Shannon. "None of my friends will EVER talk to you!"

"So what's to be sorry about in that?" Calvin and Jessica said simultaneously; and doubled up laughing while Shannon stalked off.

Jessica turned to Calvin.

"Do you mind if I'm friendly with Susie Derkins as well?" she asked "She hasn't got a special friend and you have Hobbes…. I wish I had a friend like Hobbes."

"Susie can't half be a pain" said Calvin "But at least she's smart….. okay she can hang with us. I know her better than anyone because we've always lived next door to each other. And she DOES admire Hobbes. She can't see his other self though."

"Poor Susie" sighed Jessica. "It must be hard to have been middle aged from birth. But of course Hobbes IS special."

"Of course I am" said Hobbes purring.

"Come to a car trunk sale with me?" said Calvin "I like poking around for cool stuff; there's treasure everywhere! And maybe we'll find YOU a friend."

Jessica brightened.

"I'd like that" she said.


	5. Chapter 5

**5 A Friend for Jessica**

Jessica cycled over to see Calvin at the weekend.

"We can go to the car trunk sale by bike" she suggested.

"Uh…..no" said Calvin.

"Why, don't you have a bike?" asked Jessica "You got total freedom from the parents with a bike!"

Calvin went red.

"You'll laugh" he mumbled "DAD never believed me."

"Try me" said Jessica. "If you say that it's true I believe you; and if I laugh it's not AT you but at the way you tell it."

Calvin swallowed.

"My dad keeps making me try to learn to ride; but my bike's malevolent. It chased me all the way upstairs once and out the bedroom window onto the backus roof; and I got in trouble for taking it up. It's great that HOBBES is alive but not when it's other bad things."

Jessica frowned.

"This has happened with other bad things?" she asked.

"Yeah…. A baseball bit chunks out of my baseball bat trying to get at me" he admitted reluctantly.

Jessica considered.

"I don't think it's the bike or the ball" she began.

"You said you'd believe me!" accused Calvin

"I DO you big baboon!" said Jessica "Just let me finish will you? I don't think it's the individual objects, I think it's an evil spirit or poltergeist, in the way that Hobbes is a friendly one, that can occupy your possessions, possess them if you will, and attack you."

Calvin considered.

"I guess that makes more sense than that a load of my stuff gets an evil consciousness" he said. "It seems to live in my bike though."

"Okay; we need to research how to deal with it" said Jessica. "There's bell book and candle and there's Shinto ways and I expect other people have other ways of exorcism; and if we do them all we can't miss, right?"

Calvin brightened.

"That's cool" he said. "I say, Jessica, if we wrote it up we could put it in as a project for comparative culture."

"Now THAT's smart" said Jessica "We're allowed to collaborate on it and I was rather wondering what to do. And if we let Susie help us she's pretty good at library work too. We needn't tell her we plan to exorcise your bike."

Calvin laughed.

"Well I heard of an exercise bike, but an exorcised bike?" he said "I say, park yours somewhere safe, I got mum to say she'd take us to the car boot sale providing I promised not to come home with anything bigger than I could carry."

oOoOo

There were a lot of people at the car trunk sale; and on the whole Calvin was glad that he had decided to take Jessica's advice and leave Hobbes at home. Hobbes was sulking a little but Jessica had kissed him into submission – Calvin would not have minded that himself if he only thought that sulking would get the same result – and explained that silly people who could not see him might try to buy him and then get stroppy when he wanted to go home.

Hobbes had capitulated. He always was a sucker for the babes.

Meanwhile Calvin and Jessica were looking at toy animals, telling grown ups on the stall the were looking for a mascot and it had to FEEL right. Some of the animals had some level of consciousness; mostly rather sluggish; and, said Jessica, pretty much in hibernation.

"Kinda like they wake up for a kid and go into limbo when there's no juvenile consciousness to fuel their self awareness?" said Calvin.

"That's it exactly I think" said Jessica "I bet most kids have the power to attract the awakening of furry toys when they're very little but later they learn to disbelieve. We never lost the ability to believe I guess. And Hobbes is pretty out of the usual too I reckon; to force an existence in himself even in an age when I bet you were sceptical."

"Yeah" said Calvin "He is pretty special; but look, don't tell him that; he can scarcely get his head through the door anyway."

Jessica giggled.

They stopped to consider a conversation with a lop eared bunny who regarded them with a slightly jaundiced expression; but a tot of three or so squealed and pulled her parent over to the stall and there was an obvious and immediate bond.

"It isn't that easy, is it?" said Jessica.

"WHAT isn't that easy?" said a purry sort of voice. Jessica started and turned around to find herself being regarded by a large white velvet cat with button eyes, one of them loose.

"Finding a friend" said Jessica "Are YOU my friend?"

The velvet cat yawned.

"Well I was just thinking" she said, stretching "How hard it was to find a human who wasn't about to pull one's eye off. You WILL sew it back properly, won't you?"

"So long as I won't hurt you" said Jessica nervously.

"I can go dormant for such things" yawned the cat. "What is your name? I need to know the name of any human I own."

"I'm Jessica" said Jessica "And this is my friend Calvin; HIS friend is a tiger called Hobbes. What's your name?"

"Lily" said the cat. "But I answer to Princess Liliana Riit."

"Lily sounds just fine" said Calvin firmly; he could see trouble if Lily was allowed to take too much initiative. Hobbes was bad enough.

"And Princess on high days" said Jessica hastily as Lily bristled. "It won't do to let too many people know your highness' true identity."

"Well there is something in that" smirked Lily.

All that remained was to pay for her; and go home.

Introducing her to Hobbes was going to be interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

**6 Hello Kitties?**

When Lily found out that she would be meeting Hobbes as soon as they got home she threw a royal hissy fit and demanded that her eye be sorted out before she was seen by a male cat.

Fortunately Jessica had been brought up to be prepared; and more in a marine-brat way than in a Girl-Scout way. This meant that her haversack went everywhere with her – a plain khaki bag but decorated with a variety of pins most of which Calvin did not recognise, like the silver stylised eagle and the big black enamelled 'I' with two bars through it. There were also several 'Hello Kitty' pins that Lily approved of. Calvin had often wondered about the bag; now he discovered by careful peering that a survival knife, fold up stove and a tin labelled 'matches' were some of the things she carried; what looked like an aluminium-backed survival blanket, First Aid box, spare socks and what she was looking for – a sewing kit.

The sewing kit came in a tin that also had a couple of fishing flies and a fishing line in it but was otherwise feminine enough with hair ribbon, safety pins and a selection of fastenings as well as needles and threads. Jessica chose black.

"And what's more Lily, if you stay dormant I shall replace the matching green thread on your other eye so you have nice black pupils" she said."

Lily purred; and promptly became nothing but a toy; and Jessica stitched assiduously.

"Bossy ain't she?" said Calvin.

"She's a princess" said Jessica. "I think all female cats are; or at least think they are. It'll be a hoot introducing her and Hobbes."

She completed her sewing and gently stroked Lily until the toy woke up.

She gave a loud purr; and licked the end of Jessica's nose.

"I have never had better eyesight" she said "You are a very worthy human Jessica."

oOoOo

Hobbes was asleep on Calvin's bed; and Calvin went to wake him up and tell him that Jessica had a friend of her own.

Hobbes got up tail flicking backwards and forwards.

"What if I don't like her?" he said.

"Then I expect Jessica will leave her at home when she visits us and I'll leave you at home if I visit her" said Calvin "However if you ask me you're borrowing trouble; you wow all the babes, I don't suppose a furry one will be any different."

Hobbes preened and licked a paw.

"You're quite right" he said. "Let us go and see this Princess Lily. I've ALWAYS been a sucker for royalty."

oOoOo

Lily regarded Hobbes with some awe.

"You do get large" she said "A tiger of course is one of the ROYAL cats."

"Exactly" said Hobbes, trying to look regal "How fortunate it is that you are white all over; it sets off my stripes so well."

"And your stripes show up my pristine whiteness" said Lily. "I think I might permit you to wash me but stay away from my ears until I say you may."

Shortly afterwards Jessica and Calvin were able to observe a curled up ball of black and white and orange, washing each other vigorously and explaining between rather damp purrs how nice it was to have a real person – it came out as prrrrrson – to talk to.

They left them to it and went out to corner Susie and ask if she wanted to do a joint assignment on exorcism in different cultures for the term assignment.

Susie regarded them with suspicion.

"From Jessica I might swallow a weekend interest in work, but YOU Calvin? Be aware, Jessica, Calvin hates work; if he wants to do any, it's for an ulterior motive. I'm not sure if I want to be involved."

"All right you rotten girl, don't be" said Calvin crossly "And it's not much of an ulterior motive; I want to lift the curse on my bike, okay? And if I'm going to do all that work to find out how, it might as well be put to some other use too and be stuck in as schoolwork."

Susie's face cleared.

"Oh!" she said "Well lifting a curse from your bike is a pretty weird thing to do so I can totally believe in THAT as a reason, Calvin, because nobody's weirder than you. I'm glad that you've finally realised that using what you find out to get good grades is a sensible thing to do; though it's sad that you don't enjoy finding things out for their own sake."

"I do enjoy finding things out for their own sake, Susie Derkins" said Calvin "It's just that we never get set assignments on dinosaurs or the life cycle of the tsetse fly or how some wasps lay eggs inside a caterpillar that eat their way out while it's still alive."

"EEEW! You're disgusting!" said Susie.

"Not as disgusting as that wasp" said Calvin.

"That's why he's going to work real hard at biology so when he's completed the boring stuff he can get to be a naturalist and study interesting bugs or saurians" said Jessica brightly.

"I am? Oh, yeah, right, I guess I am" said Calvin; because studying with Jessica was more fun than he might have liked to admit and being a naturalist might be quite cool. "And Tigers; I can study tigers too."

"Good thought" said Jessica. "Anyway, Susie, are you in with the exorcism study? I bet nobody else will do that branch of comparative religion for Cultural Studies; we could get really high marks."

"Or really blow it if Calvin writes up exorcising his bike and makes like he just wants a pun on exercising" said Susie cynically "Or puts in weird crap about the customs of some alien he's made up."

"He won't" said Jessica "Trust me."

"Oh I HATE it when people say that" said Susie. "Oh all right; it is a brilliant idea, but I want it made clear which research belongs to who and which is joint."

"That's cool" said Calvin. "And I haven't talked to any aliens for years; I think they gave up on Earth as a dead loss when they found out we get snow."

Susie sighed.

He was a bit less weird than he used to be but she wished he would not talk as though aliens were real and things like that.

At least the worst thing he had done this year at school was to hide a vibrator in the spaghetti so it writhed in the serving dish; and at least the headmaster had thought it funny and had let him off with a ticking off for scaring some of the girls.

As it was the sillier girls who had actually screamed, Susie had a shrewd idea that the head had NOT actually considered their fears to be of any great moment but of course she would never tell Calvin THAT.

Oh well, he seemed STEADIER with Jessica around even if he DID say weird things. Perhaps they might do well; and if he blew it for them, Susie resolved never to speak to him again!


	7. Chapter 7

**7 Exorcise Bike**

The class were still studying 'Animal Farm' and Calvin now had inscribed on the front cover of his exercise book 'Four legs good, stripes better'; and on the back cover 'All Animals are Equal but Tigers are More Equal than others' on which Jessica had drawn a neat line through 'Tigers' and written 'Felines', which defacement Calvin had accepted . Pictures of Hobbes adorned the cover, to which he added pictures of Lily. Gel pens were a great invention for getting colour onto dark blue text book covers!

Because it had a practical purpose his studies on exorcism were also going well; and Susie, who had demanded to see what he had already researched and written up owned herself – in as many words – gobsmacked by the amount he had done.

"When I recall that you usually did most of your projects the night before with a mad rush and no real work I have to say I'm glad you're finally shaping up" she said.

Calvin shrugged.

"Maybe it's because they give us a little more choice at High School" he said. "I get to look at interesting things and useful stuff. I'm disappointed old Hodges turned down my suggestion that I build a nuclear bomb for a physics project though."

"I can't believe he let you study detonators and electronic timers though" said Susie.

"That was because I told Mr Hodges that Calvin was considering a career in buildings demolitions after a year or two in the Marine Corps" said Jessica. "You never know when understanding explosives might come in handy; even if it's only to avoid being blown up."

"Sometimes Jessica you're as weird as he is" said Susie.

"Thanks!" said Jessica.

Susie gave up; that was NOT what anyone was supposed to say!

At least with the massive amounts of research they were all turning in, their Comparative Culture project should be the best one in the year!

oOoOo

The enormous amount of research pleased Calvin too, though from an entirely different viewpoint. He and Jessica made further notes – which were not going to go into the project – and on Jessica's suggestion, Calvin asked his dad how much he and Jessica would get for cleaning the garage.

"If you want to clean something, there's your room" said his mother.

"Yes but I have to do that anyway; I'm not likely to get paid for it" said Calvin.

"He has a point, honey" said his dad. "Ten dollars if you make a really good job of it."

"Way to go!" said Calvin "Each?"

"Now wait a bit!" said his dad "It'd have to be an exceptionally good job to be worth twenty bucks over all!"

"Right!" said Calvin "I'll just phone Jessica."

"I think I might be going to regret this" muttered his father.

"I could have told you that before you made rash promises" said Calvin's mother.

oOoOo

Jessica and Calvin had decided to base their exorcism on Shintoism because it seemed to work in the Akuryoo Series Manga books that Jessica read and which quickly fascinated Calvin too. Jessica's mum knew Japanese; so the books were full of sticky labels with translations for Jessica to read.

Basing their ritual on Shintoism, for a proper exorcism they had to thoroughly clean the place they meant to use; and then wash all over. This Calvin was less impressed by; but desperate needs called for desperate solutions.

Getting rid of all the rubbish from the garage was a time consuming job; and then it had to be thoroughly scrubbed. Had not Jessica kept them at it, and Hobbes and Lily encouraged them Calvin might have packed it in; but he was sufficiently curious to see if it worked as well as more or less coming to the conclusion that doing as Jessica suggested usually worked out in the long term.

"Why don't you two catch some of the mice we scared out of the corners?" he grumbled to Hobbes and Lily "If you can't make yourselves useful scrubbing you might at least be proper predators."

"I NEVER do mousework" said Lily.

"And I never catch such undersized prey" said Hobbes.

"Useless pair of fleabags" said Calvin.

When Jessica had washed his scratches and found sticking plaster they got down to it; and Jessica said,

"Their task is to be great spirits of good to drive away the evil spirit in your bike."

Calvin regarded his sticking plaster.

"Good. Yeah, right" he said.

"At least they don't try to kill you like the bike does" said Jessica. "Have you got the salt? They need it as a protective circle and to throw; they have to wrestle on your behalf you know, while we love them and believe in them."

"It can't take over THEM can it?" said Calvin, suddenly worried.

"No because we won't let it" said Jessica.

They broke for lunch and Calvin's mum exclaimed at his wounds.

"Boys always find sharp corners" said Jessica by way of explanation; mentioning that the sharp corners had been claws was too much information for any grownup.

oOoOo

There were a few things to finish; then they took turns at a quick but thorough wash in the bathroom – Calvin's mum was later to sigh that they might have cleaned the garage but had transferred all its dirt onto her towels – and went down to perform the ritual.

The salt was set out to protect them; and Jessica and Calvin brought the bike in to the garage. When it saw the salt it tried to escape and to bite, but they had it firmly by the wheels and frogmarched it to where Calvin had prepared a chain and padlock to lock it to the shelf at the back of the garage. The pedals circled frantically trying to kick.

"There's two of us; you can't win" said Calvin "Resistance is futile!"

"But we aren't going to assimilate it" said Jessica "Leave the Borg out of this, it might get funny ideas."

"Yeah, sorry" said Calvin.

They tossed sprays of salt and Calvin, feeling silly but not as silly as he would have done had the bike not fought back and been seen to do so by Jessica, stamped ritually like a sumo wrestler. Jessica read out the ritual words she had put together and then Hobbes and Lily were busy rolling around, snarling and biting and fighting something only they could see.

And then it was over.

Lily gave a loud, smug, purr.

"We saw it off" said Hobbes. "Leave it to us felines to do the hard stuff!"

Jessica and Calvin looked at each other; and managed to keep straight faces.

"Yeah, ol' buddy; it was dead cool" said Calvin.

"You're so clever!" Jessica praised Lily.

"Right; lets sweep the salt out of here quick before dad notices" said Calvin, unpadlocking the bike. It seemed quiescent. He mounted it and rode unsteadily across the garage floor.

"YES!" he shouted, punching the air, and promptly falling off.

"That was your own fault" said Jessica critically.

"Well yes" said Calvin. "It can't come back can it?"

"No" said Jessica "And now I can teach you to ride and we can go anywhere we like without grownups."

"Quality" said Calvin.


	8. Chapter 8

**8 Tracer Bullet Strikes Again**

'_I knew the dame was trouble the moment I saw her. She was all kitten eyes and she was leading with a loaded bosom. _

_She tried to turn on the charm._

_It ran thick and glutinous like treacle._

_I got the shakes._

_That's what too much sugar does for you; it's the sort of high that doesn't last and coming out of it isn't pretty._

_I got myself under control. NO-ONE tries to control Tracer Bullet!_

"_Beat it sister" I ground out._

_She smiled at me. It was a smile like a homicidal piano; all ivory and no compassion. _

"_You know, big boy, that redhead is no good for you" she cooed. "She's nothing but trouble."_

_I knew the redhead was nothing but trouble; it's why I'd hooked up with her in the first place. Trouble is my middle name; and the red haired dame was one helluva gal in a tight spot. Besides her ma made cookies to die for. And my partner Hobbes thought the world of her and her friend. _

"_Hotlips" I grit out "If you don't git, you'll know what trouble really is. You're just trying to stir up more than you can handle and maybe you might get what you're asking for; but you ain't gonna like it."_

"So what did Shannon Kennedy say next?" asked Jessica.

"She said I was too weird to talk to" said Calvin. "That was when I told her that I grew hair at the full moon and became a were-tiger."

"Tracer Bullet isn't a were-tiger, surely?" said Jessica.

"No, but I wanted to freak her out some more" said Calvin.

'_I picked the redhaired dame as my secretary because I knew she was one dame I could trust; she was a dame who thought like a man."_

"Should I resent that or take it as a compliment?" asked Jessica.

"Take it as a compliment; it was the way it was meant" said Calvin "You don't DO soppy behaviour like most girls do."

"Okay, granted, but I'm still a girl, just with different priorities to the common herd" said Jessica.

'_She had all the insights into womanhood that being female gave her without being plagued with their usual faults'_ "suit you?"

"Perfectly" said Jessica. "I like Tracer Bullet; is he going to marry his secretary so he can get away with not paying a wage and gets to smooch her too?"

"I hadn't thought that far ahead but I guess it's as good a reason to marry your secretary as any" said Calvin. "Can I get on?"

"Sorry" said Jessica.

'_She had all the right instincts – the instincts of a predator, but never thought of making me the prey. Unlike my partner Hobbes who was sometimes a little more predatory than I liked. But we all work well together; between us we have good ideas. Her friend Lily was still a little new in the organisation and I hadn't decided how she was going to pan out; but Lily was class. Whatever she did, she had the ability to look like a princess, and somehow I didn't think she'd muddy her paws in the gumshoe world."_

"Sadly, I think you're right" said Jessica "Though she does wash like mad when she knows she's going to see Hobbes."

"Hobbes is a ladies' man all right" said Calvin "I mean….."

'_My partner Hobbes had hit on her right away; he was always one for the ladies. And she didn't seem averse to his advances. Hobbes could always handle the dames; the more he handled them the better he liked it. I debated turning over the Kennedy chick to him but I was afraid she might be too hot for even Hobbes to handle; I'd seen how she chewed up men and spat them out. I knew the only reason she had approached me was because she resented the redhead having action with a boy, er, a man she didn't want but couldn't bear not to have on a string like the others."_

"I have action with you?" said Jessica.

"Yeah, well, we go around together, don't we?" said Calvin.

"We're best friends; it's not the same as action though" said Jessica.

'_The redhead and me, we hadn't got together except in our profession; but there was definite chemistry. When I looked at her I could feel it; but Tracer Bullet is cautious. He might want to smooch a dame but when she's the best dame in the world, he doesn't want to lose her as a comrade too.'_

"Oh that's very nice" approved Jessica, blushing gently. "I think Tracer Bullet is right to be cautious; the redhaired dame is cautious too about being swept off her feet by her tough-talking boss. Besides, she wants to hold out on him to be taken into a partnership rather than being 'the secretary'.

"Well it's sort of traditional in the genre that dames aren't partners as such" said Calvin.

"Huh, the BEST author knows when to break genre conventions" said Jessica.

'_She was more than a secretary; damn if she wasn't more like a partner. I knew it was what she was angling for – a partnership. I was certainly considering it. A hot dame like that deserved anything a man could give her. I didn't have diamonds or shares in Big Blue but I sure as hell could give her my trust.'_

"Now that's what I call really nice" said Jessica, deciding not to point out that Calvin was blushing too.

"Just don't expect a Valentine that isn't humorous" said Calvin half crossly.

"It wouldn't be you if it wasn't humorous" said Jessica "So long as I get a soppy one from Hobbes."

"I don't know" said Calvin "He might be afraid Lily would be jealous."

"Well he can write one to me as his second best girl" said Jessica. "I don't mind."

"Right" said Calvin "I SAY! Is recess over already?"

"We'd have had more if you hadn't had to waste time being ticked off by Mrs Briggs for giving Shannon hysterics" said Jessica. "C'mon; your least favourite subject I'm afraid; but soonest done, soonest gone, and mathematics is only any point if you want to be an engineer or an artillery officer. Oh, and for demolitions to work out the amount of explosives you need" she added casually.

"Are you manipulating me?" asked Calvin suspiciously as they made their way to the classroom.

"Of course I am" said Jessica "We've already established that we've got a thing between us and you might as well get used to it before we get married."

Calvin opened his mouth and shut it again.

How could you have a go at a girl for being sneaky and devious when she was perfectly upfront about her sneaky deviousness?


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 Just another day**

"Dad" said Calvin

"Yes son?" said his father, warily, looking up from breakfast.

"How soon after a girl agrees to marry you did you ought to give her a ring? asked Calvin.

"You usually have one ready for when you ask her" said his father "But if you ask me, it's better to avoid that sort of entanglement; because before you know where you are she's wanting a kid and won't be satisfied with the offer of a kitten instead. You don't have to worry about that for a long while….." he paused, suspiciously "Calvin! You haven't er, misbehaved with a girl have you?" he asked anxiously.

"Certainly not!" said Calvin "I don't know where to buy the equipment."

His father spluttered.

"WHAT equipment?" he demanded.

"Well like they have on 'Naughty Nurses Chained' and 'Hellcat Policewomen' and….. that wasn't what you meant was it?"

His father was a worrying shade of purple.

"I didn't mean bondage!" he cried "I meant….. well….. getting intimate!"

"Your father means sex" said Calvin's mother looking up from her coffee.

Calvin sniffed.

"Oh SEX" he said "Is THAT all? No I haven't."

His father heaved a sigh of relief.

"Well if you haven't got a girl into trouble you don't have to worry about getting married. In fact, I strongly suggest you don't get married. You might have children" he added.

Calvin's mum was glaring at her husband.

"I get it" said Calvin "Having kids causes arguments. Don't worry; we'll stick to keeping tigers."

He got up and picked up his school bag.

"And THAT's what I meant!" he heard his father excuse himself "You wouldn't want him BREEDING would you? Having one is bad enough, imagine grandchildren like Calvin!"

"There's nothing wrong with your son" said Calvin's mum tightly "He's a little offbeat at times; and sure that was hard at first but look how well he's knuckling down to work at High School! He said his art teacher liked his idea for a – an installation."

"What is it, homicidal snowmen?" said Calvin's father sarcastically.

"I don't know but if the art teacher liked it I doubt it can be offensive" said Calvin's mother.

Good ol' mom! thought Calvin. They didn't always see eye to eye, and she didn't really understand him, but she did TRY.

It was a great installation, multimedia, and based on all the samurai culture he had been learning about reading Jessica's anime comics.

He discussed it with her when they got to school.

"How am I going to make the action men we got at the garage sale look more Japanese?" he wondered "Do you think the karate costume would do? And do you think spaghetti would work for guts spilling out?"

"I'd cook it in a mix of red and blue food colouring to get a pinky purple colour so it looks more realistic" said Jessica "And if you get a few tiny buffing brushes like for the Dremel drill to glue onto the backs of their heads it would be like the tea whisk style of hairdo; easier than doing a topknot. And use flesh colored paint to change the eye shape. You can make caps out of black card for the one doing the tea ceremony and the one committing seppuku doesn't need anything on his head, but the karate top won't do. I'll see if I can find a plain white Barbie dressing gown. If you go to the joke and trick shop you can get fake Halloween blood too."

"COOL!" said Calvin. "The Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter haiku are coming on, I'm going to print them out in the Brushstroke font and put on my background; I'm printing with potato cuts plum blossom, through wisteria, to chrysanthemums and autumn leaves and snowflakes with my samurai doing calligraphy, tea ceremony, fighting and killing himself. It's going to be called 'Warrior Art' and the death poem will then hang off the edge of the table" he considered "Dad didn't know if I ought to give you a ring if we're going to get married."

"I think you should wait until you decide you want to propose formally" said Jessica "Perhaps at our Prom."

"That's forever away!" said Calvin.

"Yes; and either one of us might change our mind in the meantime" said Jessica "Though I doubt it. Being friends is better than being soppy. Do you like what I'm doing with my art project?"

"It's cool" said Calvin "Even though it is of course derivative."

"Yes, but Yoshitoshi was as concerned about showing Tairo no Kiyomori seeing the skulls in his snowy garden, I just want to paint skulls in rock formations and not complicate matters with figures" said Jessica "It's great that Miss Watson is really into Japanese art and likes to encourage us even in the macabre. I'm not as clever as you are at art but I can paint skulls. What mark did you get for your essay for Free Expression?"

"B+" said Calvin "Snarky creature doesn't feel that science fiction is a suitably developmental medium for the teenage mind even when it is accompanied by a good appreciation of drama and a well developed imagination."

"But he does like Film Noir" said Jessica "At least, I saw a Dashiell Hammett book on his desk once. Try letting Tracer Bullet loose at him."

Calvin brightened.

"I might at that" he said. "Let me copy your maths, Jess!"

Jessica hissed at him in a very good imitation of Lily's more irritable utterances.

"Don't call me Jess" she said "And I'll help you work them but you won't do yourself any favours copying."

Calvin sighed.

"I was afraid you'd say that" he said in resignation.


	10. Chapter 10

**10 Vampire Scouts Bite Back**

"Calvin" said Mr Bryant in exasperation "If you put in as much effort to your math as you do to creating flickbooks of er, 'Vampire Scouts Bite Back' in the corners of your exercise books you'd be a straight 'A' student."

There was some laughter in class, mostly unkind.

"Math is like some weird and arcane foreign language that I can't translate" said Calvin "The numbers don't make any sense."

Mr Bryant sighed.

"Yet your precision for the flick stories ought to stand you in good stead" he said "I'll tell you what, Calvin; I'll make a deal with you. If you'll WORK in class and at your homework I'll ask the Principal to let me start an animation club and teach you how to turn your flick books into movies. Will you accept that as a deal?"

Calvin stared, open mouthed.

"You BET, Mr Bryant!" he breathed. "Only I don't know where to START with the math. I've always had trouble. The numbers have a mind of their own."

"I shouldn't mind betting you're discalculate" said Mr Bryant "It's like dyslexia of numbers."

"Knew he was a dummy" hissed Oliver.

"Actually, Oliver" said Mr Bryant sweetly "Research shows that most people with dyslexia and related problems tend to be above average intellect; otherwise they wouldn't notice that there was something wrong with the way letters and numbers didn't behave for them. And your own homework was quite disgracefully slapdash and you aren't actually good enough at Math to be able to afford that. Moe, you got a couple right; well done. Now I want everyone else to work the exercise on page 56, Moe, you carry on with the next exercise in your book, and Calvin, you and I are going to go through your homework question by question so I can find out where it is you're sticking; and if you need a bit of remedial math, there's no shame in that to give you the best chance of catching up. Because I know you CAN catch up."

"I- I guess sir" said Calvin squirming slightly in shame that if Mr Bryant was going to be nice about it, he could not do as he generally did and just not bother. It wasn't FAIR that he was cool and decent not a tyrant!

oOoOo

Animation club started with about thirty pupils from across the school – to Calvin's disgust – most of whom drifted away as soon as they discovered that for every second of film they would need to make twenty five drawings or move figures or cut outs very precisely twenty five times.

When they were down to ten, Mr Bryant grinned.

"And what we don't need to tell them is that sometimes there are ways of taking short cuts and most of the time, at least when you are beginning you can get away with about half of that" he said.

"Mr Bryant, did you get rid of them on purpose?" asked Jessica.

"Let's just say I want a class that's prepared to take itself fairly seriously" said Mr Bryant. "Now I bent the ear of the metalwork master to weld some spikes onto metal rulers right in the places holes from a four hole punch would go; this is called a registration bar and it keeps your drawings right on top of each other so when you photograph them they don't slide about on the screen in an uncontrolled manner. I've managed to borrow four cameras, so I suggest you work in pairs or threes to start with and we'll muck about with cut out animation – that's how 'South Park' started by the way – to get the idea. I'll have to bill your parents for the special paper for drawn animation and a registry bar but it's not very much. Calvin, will you be wanting to take some home to start work to film next week? And if I let you, will you promise not to neglect your math homework?"

"Yes please Mr Bryant" said Calvin "Please can you go through it with me after school though? To set me going? Otherwise no matter how hard I try it's going to defeat me."

"I certainly shall" said Mr Bryant "And that goes for anyone who's having difficulties. Dear me, I believe I may have to produce my own animation for the school with errant numbers getting up to attack my pupils."

Calvin grinned.

"That's how it feels sometimes sir" he said.

"Well once you have experience of using numbers practically – costing out film production perhaps, as well as working with a dope sheet you might find them less aggressive. Polly, WHY are you giggling?"

"Please sir" the girl was older than Calvin "They say he's weird enough without being on dope! And please, are you supposed to TALK about it to minors?"

"Polly, a dope sheet has nothing to do with such things as drugs" said Mr Bryant "And I'm shocked that you should even think so; I DO hope you don't use! It is a sheet on which you record all the timings in numbers of frames for every drawing or scene; it becomes most important when you are adding sound, so that the scary music is while Barbie is being stabbed in her shower not when she's snogging Ken, though considering the anatomical enormities of the wretched dolls maybe scary music MIGHT be appropriate" he added with a sigh. "And if you want to draw mouth movements to coincide with speech – it's called lip synch" he added.

"And there's a special way to plan it? COOL!" said Calvin, who never minded putting effort into what he enjoyed.

oOoOo

Calvin was so happy after animation club he agreed to teach Jessica how to play Calvinball.

"You're the first girl I taught since my babysitter got so good at it she beat me all the time" he said "Using unfair new rules like the babysitter flag."

Jessica soon picked up the main rule – there are no rules except what you make up as you go along – and even Lily deigned to join in with the immutable rule that nobody was allowed to do anything to make white cats dirty.

It was, as Jessica quickly worked out, an excuse to run around fairly aimlessly, trying to see how many of the other players you could irritate with the most ridiculous rules.

Calvin rebelled when she came up with the rule that anyone crossing the poetry line from east to west had to stand on one foot and repeat a nursery rhyme to his mother; so Jessica declared a penalty that he had to go and do one of his math problems before he was freed from the sin bin.

"Trust a girl to drag work into it" he grumbled.

"Well if math problems are a part of Calvinball I figured they might not be as scary" said Jessica.

Calvin pondered that.

"We'll see" he said and went off to complete the penalty.

Coming to it fresh from exercise and without having worked himself up into a worry about it, the problem was not as hard as he was expecting! He hurried out having come up with a rule that if he touched Jessica with the hopping flag she had to hop until released from it by touching something stripy.

He had a deep suspicion that Hobbes let Jessica catch up to him far too easily to break that penalty; but then, Hobbes always had been a sucker for the babes.

And he wasn't afraid of Math for the next day; he'd done the first problem and he was pretty sure he could do the others!


	11. Chapter 11

**11 Art Homework**

"I have to go into town to do some homework, dad" said Calvin.

"That sounds a little spurious" said his father "I never heard of homework being done in town."

"Well it needs to be unless you can make a lot of people moving around appear right here" said Calvin "My art teacher really likes the idea of me belonging to the animation club and she wants me to back up my presentation with an animation not a static background and she told me to draw people moving to get in practice."

"Well art isn't a real subject, is it?" said his father "It's not very character building."

"You SO are going to get in a fight with Mrs Watson, dad" said Calvin "She says I have great vision and should go to art college because I have a great future; she reckons that lawyers and accountants are a waste of space because none of them have any personality. And if I can get consistent good marks I might get a scholarship to a college that teaches animation."

"There's no money in art" said his father.

"Tell that to Walt Disney" said Calvin.

"He has a point, honey" said Calvin's mother "If his art teacher thinks he has a future we should encourage him; better a successful artist than a patents lawyer who gets fired because he's not interested in it. He's my son as well as yours and he isn't a carbon copy of you, you know."

"Well that I'd noticed" said Calvin's dad dryly. "What's this presentation called?"

"Transient cherry blossom" said Calvin. His father blinked.

"Well that's a bit different to your usual warped view of art" he said. "What has that to do with cooking pasta in food colouring?"

"For the guts of the samurai who's committing seppuku of course" said Calvin.

"I take it back; it IS as warped as usual" sighed his father "Does your art teacher know about the er guts?"

"Oh yes dad; she said it was a very poignant expression of the darker side of the samurai ideal and a perfect expression of the underlying metaphor of life in death and death in life" said Calvin.

"As if we didn't have enough to worry about – his art teacher's a weirdo too" his father groaned.

"Honey!" said Calvin's mother "You're too judgemental; this Mrs Watson is just channelling Calvin's er, offbeat urges into creativity."

His father snorted but picked up the car keys.

"I suppose you want money for a soda while you're in town" he said in resignation.

"That'd be nice dad" said Calvin.

oOoOo

"Oh BOY Hobbes, I never had to argue about being allowed to do my homework before" grinned Calvin when they were sat at a table in a coffee bar with two large sundaes.

"It had a surreal quality to it" agreed Hobbes "What does Mrs Watson want you to do?"

"She wants me to have people in kimonos moving about and she's going to help me patch in some fight sequences from 'Seven Samurai' as well" said Calvin "But she wants some of it to be my animation work to show off that I can do it. She's going to back-project it onto the screen behind my samurai models and we'll have my poems read out and only written small by each figure for the total installation experience. It'll be cool!"

He got out his sketch book to draw the people in the street outside.

He only got sidetracked once into adding a tyrannosaur.

"Babe alert; neat chassis" said Hobbes.

"Trust you to notice" said Calvin, ignoring the babe.

She DID have a nice figure but when Hobbes was ogling babes he could be insufferable if agreed with.

"Aw, go on, draw her; isn't the way her backside moves just a cool bit of movement?" said Hobbes "Gimme some paper then and let me draw her."

"Not in my homework book" said Calvin "I won't bring you next time if you don't behave."

That was about the one thing that could silence Hobbes; he could only exist as a real tiger in Calvin's sphere of influence. In their home was fine; but away from it he was stuck in the body of a furry toy without Calvin and if Calvin also stopped taking him places Hobbes had a strong fear that the influence at home might fade as it had begun to do when Calvin had gone through a phase of not needing him.

He growled slightly but settled down to ogle the females.

None of them was as svelte and beautiful as Lily, of course….

Hobbes twitched his tail considering.

Calvin and Jessica were just friends; but with a bit of manipulation they could be kept together and then they would have cubs who would believe in him and in Lily and he and Lily could, if they worked on it, stay together and live on.

It might take a little work; but Hobbes was sure he could pull it off.


	12. Chapter 12

_Sorry it's taken me so long to write another one, believe me having kittens underfoot is a severe distraction. we may be down to 3 kitties now but they are still very demanding... I haven't forgotten other themes that have been suggested but they haven't seemed to work just yet.__ Thanks to everyone for your support and interest in the fic!_**  
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**12 Sometimes detention is worth it.**

"Moe's face is like a pizza

But not as appetising

I'd hate it if I didn't think

It was more worth despising" said Calvin.

The result of this taunting was sadly predictable.

First Moe stared at him in incomprehension, then gradually the idea that he was being taunted dawned on him.

"I'm gonna pound you, Twinkie" he said.

"So glad your conversational originality never changes" said Calvin.

"You ain't got that ginger girl to help you now" said Moe, and charged.

Calvin had been taking his lessons seriously; and though his heart quailed at the onrushing Moe he muttered something to himself about Tracer Bullet being ready to take a few knocks to hand them out; and if his knockdown of Moe was not so stylishly or effortlessly performed as Jessica's had been, at least it worked.

"Don't ever try to hit me again, Moe" said Calvin.

_The goon was big, but dumb. All he knew how to do was pound people. Tracer Bullet was equal to putting him down though; an ounce of science was worth a ton of sheer brute force. Pity that the goon didn't know when enough was enough. Tracer Bullet sighed as the big fella got up and came towards him again, arms wind-milling._

_Putting him down the second time was easier; but Tracer Bullet knew that he would have to conserve his energy. The goon was hardly human and who knew how long his determined stamina might last. _

_Perhaps it was as well that the cops turned up._

"Fighting? You know that's against school rules" said Mr Fingal "I'm going to have to issue a detention to both of you. Moe, when are you going to learn? You've got two strikes against you now; any more and you're going to find yourself excluded. Calvin, nice moves but I can't pass up blatant fighting you know."

"Well I did taunt him sir" said Calvin "I thought if I could actually show him that now I can fight back he might learn to leave me alone but unfortunately you can't get an idea into his head without an ice pick."

"Somehow a comparison to Trotsky comes up short" said Mr Fingal dryly. "You look puzzled, Calvin? Leon Trotsky was a Marxist revolutionary who opposed Stalin and was assassinated with an ice pick."

"You mean a Communist sir?" said Calvin.

"Indeed" said Mr Fingal "And rather an apt one to consider when you think of Napoleon in 'Animal Farm' and compare him to Stalin. The book is really a condemnation of communism and its abuses and the more you understand about communism the better you'll enjoy the book."

"Please sir, are you supposed to tell us about communism?" asked Calvin

"Well Calvin, in a free country do you think I have any right NOT to tell you about communism and let you see for yourself where naïve ideals can be corrupted?" said Mr Fingal. "We pride ourselves in this country on our free will and ability to choose; but no man can choose unless informed of all the choices."

Calvin grinned.

"That makes sense I guess" he said. "What do you recommend reading?"

"Well for enjoyment as well as some good information I suggest the Italian author Giovanni Guareschi – his books have been translated – and his books about Don Camillo. They centre around the rivalry between a village priest and the communist mayor, both of whom fought against the Nazis but found themselves on different sides of the political fence after the war. They are very funny and though written as anti-communist pro Christian democrat propaganda, in many ways what comes to the fore is that people are good and bad and that it's how you act that counts. That the two antagonists both end up very often acting together for the good of the village is an encouraging thought that maybe one day differences might be resolved. You had better check out the Marshall Plan in your history book as well to make sense of some of the background."

"Thanks" said Calvin. He was enjoying reading 'Animal Farm' and was ready to take any book recommendations by Mr Fingal seriously.

And as for having to sit detention, well it was worth it to have put Moe down!

oOoOo

"You're late" said Hobbes, who was not about to stir from his place in front of the fire. The days were really getting cold now.

"I had detention for beating on Moe" said Calvin casually "Is that why you didn't pounce on me when I came in? you think I might get the better of you now?"

Hobbes rolled onto his back, stretched one paw and then the other, yawned and rolled over several times, pausing to quickly wash a back paw.

"In your dreams" he said "A tiger beats a kung-fu fighter any day."

"Yeah, ol' buddy you're probably right" said Calvin.

Letting tigers have the last word was probably wise.


	13. Chapter 13

**13 Not a party animal**

Calvin hated birthday parties. He hated having his hair slicked down and wearing a suit, the only attire his mother felt suitable for a party.

"I bet when dad was a hippy back in the stone age he didn't wear a suit to parties" he grumbled.

"He did too" said Calvin's mom. "He had a wide kipper tie and his pants were so tight I sometimes wondered if he'd split them bending over. Hold still."

Calvin sighed. It did not help that Hobbes was making faces at him on the bed. WHEN would his mom stop treating him like a six year old?

"Never" said Hobbes, answering the unspoken question. "Moms always think you're six."

With this depressing thought Calvin left the house to be picked up by Jessica to go to the party of a girl called Belinda whom he scarcely knew but whose dad apparently worked with his dad 'so they were bound to be friends' in his mom's estimation.

Jessica also had a small gift for Belinda.

"What did your parents get for you to give her that's utterly inappropriate?" asked Calvin, gloomily.

"Oh my parents left the choice to me, so I got chocolates because everyone likes chocolates" said Jessica. "Why, did your mom foist something on to you?"

Calvin nodded gloomily.

"A pair of 'Hello Kitty' socks" he said.

"Oops!" said Jessica "Belinda doesn't like cats. She's allergic to them too."

"I think I'm allergic to her then" said Calvin as they got out of the car and the door of the neat bungalow opened. "Oh, hello Belinda, don't blame me, my mom insisted on this as a gift but if you don't like cats you deserve it."

"You're such a weirdo" said Belinda. "If my dad hadn't insisted I wouldn't have invited you."

"If mine hadn't insisted I wouldn't have come" said Calvin.

"Here, mine's chocolate. You can't go wrong with chocolate" said Jessica.

Belinda pulled a face.

"I don't eat chocolate. I'm dieting" she said.

"At your age? Grow some common sense, you'll end up anorexic" said Jessica.

Belinda sniffed and led them in. There were a number of young people already there, sitting around looking uncomfortable.

"'Sing a happy, happy, happy song'" intoned Calvin in a dirge like voice, recalling an episode of 'Rugrats'.

Jessica poked him.

"Who died and made you Angelica?" she said.

"Well look at them; this partly might as well be a funeral" said Calvin.

"I don't like rowdy parties" said Belinda. "Shall we play a nice quiet game?"

"Calvinball?" Jessica muttered hopefully to Calvin.

"If you think I'm going to let this lot of no-hopers in on that, think again" said Calvin. "The only thing that would liven this lot up is a tyrannosaur in a tomcat jet."

"I know a good game" said Jessica. "It's called Sardines-with-a-net."

"Sardines is a bit….." Belinda began.

"How do you play?" Calvin interrupted.

"Well it's like Sardines, only as soon as there are three of you in one place you join hands to be a net and have to go out and capture people and take them back to your hiding place. The team that collects the most in their net wins."

"Okay!" said Calvin. It sounded more fun than the sort of quiet games Belinda might like and the rest of the guests had brightened too.

There proceeded much noise, confusion, laughter and – from Belinda – hysterics. Her hysterics were matched by those thrown by her mother when Belinda's parents returned to serve the food having gone out 'to give the young people a little space'. The food, delicate cocktail snacks, had already been discovered and looked as though it had suffered a plague of locusts; in fact Calvin and Jessica had both made a raid on the kitchen while looking for somewhere to hide and had fortified their hiding place with provisions.

Calvin's father was putting the phone down as Calvin returned home.

"Calvin! What happened at that party?" he demanded.

Calvin stared.

"Not a lot. We played a game, we ate and then Belinda's parents put on a show like they didn't expect there to have been a party and we all came home" he said.

"You are not going to be invited back there again" said his dad.

Calvin brightened.

"Oh good" he said. "Belinda's pretty boring and the food was pretty sparse and not that great. I guess next time she wants to have a party she ought to tell her parents and let them get real food in. I'm starving; is there anything for supper?"

Calvin's parents exchanged a look.

"Well, Bulstrode's a bit of a social climber" admitted his dad. "You can make yourself a sandwich, son; that's what I did after we went to an adult party at the Bulstrodes" he added with feeling.

"Oh dear" sighed Calvin's mum.

Her menfolk exchanged a look that had something akin to fellow feeling in it.

Sometimes, thought Calvin, dad wasn't so bad.

And Hobbes would be pleased; he'd picked all those prawn things out of the fancy glasses of icky looking stuff to bring home for him!


	14. Chapter 14

**14 Character Building. **

"Calvin, do you mind if I teach my marines a version of Calvinball?" Jessica's father asked. Calvin had cycled over to the base to do Mr Fingal's literature homework with Jessica and had stayed to play Calvinball with Jessica's parents – both of whom seemed quite happy to include Lily and Hobbes in conversation and games – and they were now relaxing over ice cream sundaes. Jessica's mom was, thought Calvin, particularly impressive in not making any fuss about serving ice cream even when there was a light coating of snow on the ground. Lily was partaking of ice cream sundae even though she had not been rushing about playing – she had declared herself the referee since that was more fitting for a princess. Calvin almost choked on a mouthful of his at this sudden question.

"Er, well, I suppose that's ok Gunny" said Calvin. "Why?"

The gunnery sergeant grinned.

"Well, son, in combat or even on patrol, when you think you know the rules, it's real easy for the bad guys to suddenly change the rules on you. I figured that Calvinball was a great way to teach my boys to expect the unexpected. Besides, it's fun and helps keep you fit."

"Aren't 'fun' and 'keeping you fit' mutually exclusive?" said Calvin.

Jessica's father laughed.

"Only when keeping fit is approached as a chore and actions performed with grim determination for the ends to be reached without determining whether the correct means have been chosen to meet those ends" he said.

"So it's the same as 'character building'?" said Calvin, with interest.

"Ah" said Jessica's father. "I see you've become acquainted with the principle of 'character building' as an excuse to get you to do things you dislike."

"Well, yes" said Calvin.

The gunnery sergeant started to snort and turned it into a cough. He had not formed a very good opinion of Calvin's father so far.

"The building of character" he said, carefully "Is in the setting of challenges and overcoming them. Some parts of that are often unpleasant; but unless you feel a sense of achievement at the end, you have NOT built character in a positive sense, merely reinforced a degree of resentment that is building the wrong sort of character. We get lads joining up from all walks of life and some of them have a towering resentment against society because they are poor, have barely been taught to read and feel that everyone looks down on them. Here in the marines my job is to find their strengths – and build their character by helping them to find those strengths for themselves. And it doesn't matter if they hate me on the way to their journey of self discovery so long as they learn to love themselves and trust in their own abilities and those of their comrades. Calvinball is character building because there are challenges of split-second decisions about how to adapt to ever-changing rules."

"Wow! I hadn't looked at it that way" said Calvin. "And keeping fit is supposed to be fun too?"

His friend's father grinned.

"Well, I believe you've built a lot of character in your determination to learn to ride your bike, and have become very fit cycling places with Jess, and I hope you had fun doing it."

Calvin considered.

"On the one hand," he said, honestly, "part of me is wondering whether having done something that's good for me is likely to take the lustre off the fun we've had; but another part of me feels ridiculously and scarily virtuous."

The gunnery sergeant laughed a big booming laugh.

"Heaven forbid that a fourteen year old boy should ever feel virtuous!" he said. "No, I don't like prigs either, lad; but keeping fit is doing something for yourself, because the more you do, the more things you CAN do. A month ago you couldn't get over the climbing wall we have in the garden; today you went up it to fetch the release from jail flag to rescue Jessica as though you were a marine."

"Yeah," said Calvin, "and it was fun even with the ice burn on the metal climbing knobs. I wish my dad was more like you, Gunny."

"Well, Calvin," said the gunnery sergeant, "I reckon your dad is trying to find out these things for himself but never had anyone to explain it. You should feel compassion for him that he's doing his best and not perhaps making so great a job of it. He wants to do well by you; all fathers want to do well by their kids. Well, all reasonable fathers" he amended, thinking of many of his young marines with absent fathers.

Calvin nodded. Perhaps he could help his dad understand. After all, dad had understood about bad party food. He wasn't really a total alien. Probably.

oOoOo

Calvin re-wrote his essay for Mr Fingal; he had a lot he wanted to add to it, and besides, he had an idea. He took it into the sitting room.

"Dad" he said "Will you read my literature essay please and check it for spelling mistakes?"

If his father almost passed out in shock he was also delighted.

"Certainly son," he said, adding suspiciously, "This isn't some trick to get at me is it?"

"Not at all, dad" said Calvin, crossing his fingers behind his back.

Calvin's father read,

"The pigs under Napoleon began wearing clothes like the humans they had taken the farm away from and who" – he added an 'm' in pencil to the 'who' to correct it to 'whom' " – they despised. They aped human behaviour because they perceived it as the way in which one had to act in order to be the ones in charge. We may see this in human behaviour today where people wear copies of clothes the rich and famous wear to give them some kind of psychological connection to the same rich and famous without understanding deep down the shallowness of such a lifestyle. One might also by way of comparison and contrast cite the example of people going on camping holidays and submitting themselves to privations in order to ape the Pioneers and reiterate the pioneer spirit without truly understanding how to prepare. In this little-understood desire to build a character like those they wish to emulate they fail to take into account the preparation necessary to benefit from such an experience and learn to do more, in the same way as those who would emulate the rich and famous fail to understand the joint strains of public life and the boredom inherent in a singularly useless lifestyle which leads to the bad behaviour often associated with the famous. The pigs were closer to the example of the emulation of those whom they envied, ie the rich and famous, than any honest albeit misguided, attempt to emulate those who were truly admirable and equally it is noticeable in today's society how many more people would like the lives of pop stars than those who attempt a yearly recreation of survivalism. Neither is in itself a true picture but the choice of the pigs is one of wishful hedonism as opposed to any attempt to build character."

Calvin's father looked thoughtful.

"That's pretty well thought out, son" he said. "Do you feel that building character is a sham then?"

"No" said Calvin "I just think that approaching the building of character without setting a goal of achievement is pretty futile and fails in the attempt to build character. Shovelling snow just because doesn't build character, it builds resentment. Shovelling snow because it's a matter of understanding that the car has to be able to get out in order to make sure there's food in the house is a matter of enlightened self interest. Shovelling snow in order to help someone make deliveries to the housebound little old lady builds character I guess; and so does shovelling snow and using what you've shovelled to build a toboggan slope because you then have to work on making it safe enough to use and you can enjoy the fruits of your labour. Building character doesn't have to be all the bad things, because all the bad things only lead to some animals feeling less equal than others."

"Er – right" said Calvin's father.

"He has a point" said Calvin's mother. "I don't much appreciate being told that ironing is character building; but I'm fast enough to do it to make my best evening dress look better if someone decides to take me out to dinner" and she looked pointedly at Calvin's father.

"Er, babysitter" said Calvin's father.

"Gunny and Mrs Gunny will have me, and you can have Jessica so they can go out another time" said Calvin. "You need to make contacts, dad; it's character building."

"Nice one" said Calvin's mom.

Calvin's father gave up and phoned Jessica's parents to discuss a good date to leave Calvin. He knew when he was beat!


	15. Chapter 15

**15 Downhill all the way**

"YES!" Calvin punched the air with his fist as he looked out of the window.

"What?" said Hobbes. "Stop making a draught; it's cold."

"Yeah, it's cold because there's snow, ol' buddy, deep snow and it's Satuday!" said Calvin in deep satisfaction.

"Snow? Nice snow we can work with?" Hobbes was fully awake.

"Looks like it" said Calvin happily. "I need to phone Jessica and see if she can get a lift over here with a wheelbarrow."

Hobbes gave him a look, then shrugged. Calvin wanted to be asked and Hobbes wasn't about to give him the satisfaction.

oOoOo

Jessica got out of a military jeep and a young marine lifted a wheelbarrow out of the back for her. The girl waved thanks as the marines went on their way having dropped their sergeant's daughter off. Calvin crammed the rest of his breakfast into his mouth in one go as he heard the jeep draw up.

"Wait a minute young man, what's all this?" demanded his mom.

"Uffle- cwoz-djerzka-smmmuu" said Calvin through chocolate frosted cereal balls.

"Well you can just sit down until you can give me a civil and understandable answer" said his mom. "Dear me, that's the doorbell; who can it be this early?"

She answered the door and looked quizzically at Jessica and the wheelbarrow.

"Morning Mrs Bullart! I brought the wheelbarrow. Why do I need it?" asked Jessica.

With an effort that might be worthy of Stupendous Man, Calvin managed to swallow all that was in his overcrowded mouth and said,

"Mom, you know dad wanted to go to see that film with you, Jessica is going to help me clear the drive so you have a really good afternoon."

Calvin's father dropped his coffee.

"You're volunteering to clear the drive?" he said, then added suspiciously "are you planning on making snowmen all down the road or something?"

"Oh NO dad!" said Calvin. "I just thought that if I cleared the drive to make sure it was ok for you, as we're allowed to stay home without grownups in the daytime, I could add it to a slide to toboggan down. It's that enlightened self interest thing. Then you can do the character building having to drive through town on a snowy Saturday and Jessica and I can have fun."

It was probably just as well that his parents could not hear Lily hiss and comment that being outside in the cold and wet was not HER idea of fun.

"Cool!" said Jessica. "If that's okay, Mrs Bullart? I can phone my mom if you don't want me over all day."

"No, that's quite all right dear" said Calvin's mom. "If you're here I guess we can leave Calvin at home – how thoughtful of you dear! I didn't even know you'd heard us discussing it and regretting that we might not be able to go!"

"You just enjoy yourself, mom" said Calvin.

oOoOo

"Okay, Calvin, your parents might like to think you're being all sweet as pie, but what are we really going to do?" asked Jessica. Hobbes had, at the last minute, decided to chicken out of hard work for the superior attraction of curling up by the fire with Lily.

"We're going to build a bobsled track all the way from my bedroom window down into the valley" said Calvin. "And then we're going to borrow mum's tea tray and ride it like the skeleton."

"Are you insane?" demanded Jessica.

Calvin was injured.

"Don't tell me you're going to come over all girlie at me!" he said.

"Girlie? Well you need a female around here to have brains that aren't addled" said Jessica scathingly. "Actually, why don't you ride skeleton – head first on your front down a slope is fine for you, there's nothing to damage if you career head first into something. I'd rather go luge fashion, feet first on my back. Worst that can happen then is I break my legs."

"Oh, that's ok" said Calvin. "I thought you wanted to chicken out entirely."

"Are you kidding?" said Jessica "It'll be WICKED. Let's start shifting snow. Oh BOY am I glad we've been studying centripetal and centifugal force in physics."

"Er, you are?" said Calvin.

"'Course I am. Don't say it hadn't occurred to you that we can use them to make corners and to remember to build the walls high enough so that centrifugal force doesn't throw us off the edge!"

Calvin resolved to listen more in physics. There were an extraordinary number of things they did in lessons that actually had practical applications in the art of having fun!

oOoOo

"And NOW" said Calvin, rubbing his hands together and observing their handywork "We can have fun."

Jessica wondered if he'd used whatever power it was that managed to animate snowmen to get so impressive a structure built; she had done all she could but Calvin had seemed to be everywhere, shifting snow and building the great slope. His parents had driven off down the clear drive, congratulating him as they went. Jessica grinned to herself and wondered what they would have said if they had looked out back at the steep slope down from the bedroom window. Well, they had sent several buckets of water down it to turn the slide into ice; and Hobbes and Lily had been persuaded to leave the fire to watch the teenagers slide down, even though they declined the offer to give it a go. Hobbes had muttered something about having seen Calvin's attempts to harness centripetal force before and thanks, he liked his skin whole.

"Well who goes first?" asked Jessica.

Calvin warred with himself; and chivalry – and friendship – won.

"You can" he said.

Jessica got onto the tray on the windowsill and gingerly launched herself. Then she was yelling out loud and if anyone had asked her if it was from exhilaration or sheer terror, Jessica herself would have been unable to answer for certain. And then she was climbing high on the final corner, a moment's fear that the ice wall propped up by felled saplings wasn't high enough, and then she was round, onto the gentler slope at the bottom to slow down.

She still overshot the end and sat down hard in soft snow as she and the tray parted company.

"Oof" said Jessica, and hastily got up to watch Calvin, screaming something about the human cannonball rocketing down the slope.

All good things come to an end.

The slope had stood one sturdy teenager descending; the second made it shake in its very foundations, breaking up behind Calvin. Jessica could hardly watch; Calvin, head first, had no idea that the whole track was collapsing behind him, the collapse slowly catching up with the speeding boy.

And then he was shooting off the track as it fell, heading straight for a tree!

Hobbes did not hesitate. With all his tiger strength he pounced; and at the last minute Calvin was driven off the collision course with the tree and into a drift.

The snowy mound shook itself and two heads popped out.

"Thanks ol' buddy" said Calvin, soberly.

"Well if you smash in what few brains you have, who's going to open the cans of tuna?" said Hobbes, unanswerably.

"This is silly. We should go in" said Lily, washing a dainty paw.

The young humans looked at each other, and at the devastated slope, and at Suzy peering over her own fence and with one accord headed for the house.

"WHAT are you up to?" asked Suzy.

"Clearing the yard" said Calvin.

"I thought I saw a – oh never mind" said Suzy.

"Don't even ASK" said Jessica. "No harm done. Least said, soonest mended."

"Yes" said Suzy. "I need a hot drink and an analgesic. I'm hallucinating and I need to lie down."

"She saw me" said Hobbes. "I was too scared to hide properly. Still," he brightened, "As the luge slope has all fallen down, she'll probably think she hallucinated that too and won't split. Marshmallow hot chocolate everyone?"

That was voted a good idea; and it may be said that Calvin's parents were amazed and delighted to find their son and his friend playing cards and no apparent damage to the property at all.

"She's a very good influence on him" said Mrs Bullart happily.


End file.
